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Australia has clamped down on the import of birds from Canada, after quarantine authorities picked up bird flu antibodies in three racing pigeons.

The Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) says the birds were part of a commercial consignment of 102 pigeons that arrived in Australia in early September and underwent standard testing for a range of diseases at quarantine facilities in Melbourne.

"That testing process showed that three of the birds were positive to avian flu antibodies," says AQIS spokesperson David Finlayson.

"They don't actually have the virus but they have at some stage in their life come into contact with the virus in some form or another."

Finlayson says the tests could not show what particular strain of bird flu the pigeons had been exposed to but the birds would be euthanased as a precaution.

"If there are any questions at all, we will err on the conservative side and that's why these birds will not be released into the country. Even those that haven't tested positive."

"It's not a high risk but we're not taking any chances."

Four of the birds were also found to have antibodies for Newcastle disease, which is also of concern to Australia.

Immediate ban

The federal agricultural minister, Peter McGauran told ABC Radio this morning that the Canadian authorities had apologised but not given an "adequate explanation" for the incident.

"Australia will be imposing an immediate ban on importation of birds from Canada, until there is further and better reasons given for the errors made by the Canadian quarantine authorities," he said.

Canada's acting director of the animal division of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Dr Jim Clark, told ABC Radio that Australia's quarantine system doesn't actually require specific testing for the avian influenza antibodies in birds from Canada.

"In Canada's case, we are free of the avian influenza virus and have been since May of 2004 following the outbreak in British Colombia," he says.

Clark says there is no requirement in the Australian certification requirements to do the serological test for avian influenza if the country is free from the disease.

He says the birds are free-ranging and could have contracted avian influenza from wild birds, possibly even years before the export.

And he highlights the fact there was no actual virus present in any of the samples taken and the birds appear clinically healthy and normal.

Clark says discussions between the two countries about testing requirements is necessary.

AQIS says the main live bird imports into Australia are breeding stock for racing pigeons.

Where breeding lines for the commercial poultry industry are required, they are brought in as eggs, hatched out and grown in quarantine and only released once no disease risk is detected.

WHO tries to calm European panic

Meanwhile, Dr Margaret Chan, the World Health Organisation's deputy director general for pandemic readiness, has told a meeting of EU health ministers that the risk of bird flu becoming a deadly human pandemic in Europe remains minimal.

"The WHO stressed to us that the risk to the general population in Europe is very low indeed," says British Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, who chaired the meeting in London.

"Of course we need to ensure that we are properly prepared in each of our countries," she says.

But she stresses there is "no evidence whatsoever" that bird flu can spread from human to human.

"A pandemic is something we have to prepare for. It is not something we face," she says.